addiction - draco malfoy

fifty five

'hi' draco smiled, opening the door to let me in. even though i wasn't doing drugs anymore, me and draco agreed we were still gonna spend saturday nights playing board games and stuff, the way we used to. emma and lily always had plans on saturday nights, usually parties, which were still going ahead even with the recent events. parties were still kind of a weird territory for me now, i wasn't sure how id handle being around that much drug use. it was better to avoid.

'i got out cards against humanity' draco told me, closing the door behind me and walking over to his bed. he lay down, burying his face in the pillow and lifting his arm up for me to come lie with him. i did so, laughing as he buried his face in my hoodie. 'you smell nice' he mumbled.
'stop sniffing me you fucking freak' i rolled my eyes, laughing and pushing him away. i struggled trying to push him for a minute while he attempted to pull me closer, but i gave up in the end, letting him pull me back to his chest.

'am i sleeping here?' i asked, closing my eyes against his chest. i know he'd gone to the trouble to get cards against humanity out, but i was so drained all i wanted to do was sleep. 'are emma and lily at that party?' he checked and i nodded 'so are crabbe, goyle and blaise. i don't know how people can party when there's a murder on the loose'. i shrugged, not bothering to respond. 'i don't even know why you just asked if you were sleeping here. like i was going to let you go back to your dorm alone with the way things are right now' he paused for a minute 'still no peter?'.
'no' i said quietly. i sat up, fighting the urge to pull open his bedside table and look for any forgotten cocaine. being back here was harder than i'd thought it would be. 'no peter. can we go to sleep now?'.
'are you okay?' draco asked, sitting up too and grabbing my hand. 'yeah' i smiled at him as reassuringly as possible 'just tired. i'm kind of fed up. and i miss peter too'.

'thank you' draco whispered, kissing my forehead 'i know it must be so hard for you to stay clean. i appreciate it'. i nodded, lying back down and climbing under the covers. i was still dressed, but draco didn't mention it so neither did i. 'we can read the file again tomorrow. i know you've read it before, but maybe you missed something. maybe there is a way to still use the magic without substances mentioned there, or at the very least a clue to find out if there is one'. i nodded. i wasn't particularly hopeful, but i wasn't going to say no to trying. i would try anything at this point.

-

i woke up the next morning way before draco, untangling myself from the duvet to pad back to my room. normally i would have waited for draco to wake up, and lay with him for a while, but today i was too anxious. i'd been awake on and off since dawn broke, listening to the singing of the birds and trying to force myself not to just climb out of bed and go look for the file then and there. the more i'd thought about it, the more worked up i'd got myself over the idea that there might have been something in the file that i'd missed. i knew that i shouldn't get excited, that it was probably false hope, but i couldn't help it. i'd do anything to get the magic again, but it was more than that. i'd do anything to see peter again.

it was weird, to find out you had a secret brother, connect with him and watch him go missing off the face of the earth all in the space of one school year. add to that, the fact that you'd just discovered you had some kind of weird ass superpowers and he was the only other person you knew with them. it was a lot, and i missed him.

i walked quietly back to my dorm, tiptoeing along the hallway in my bare feet. emma and lily were both asleep when i walked in, breathing almost in time with each other. it was soothing, i realised. i could have listened to it forever, grateful that they were both here. i appreciated the little things about them more, now i knew i wasn't in a position to take them for granted.

i closed the dorm door behind me, careful to pull the handle all the way down so it wouldn't click. my bedside draw was difficult to open quietly. years of slamming it open in frustration had left it loud and squeaky. there was a certain knack and angle to it to open it silently, and i spent a minute sat cross-legged on the floor in front of it, wiggling it gently from side to side until i found the angle that it moved silently. still, i was cautious as i teased the draw completely out, setting it on the floor next to me. it would make a bit of noise to put it back, but not as much noise as it would make trying to rifle though it while it was on the rattly hinges. i could always put it back in place tomorrow and stash it under the bed tonight.

now it was flat on the floor and silent, i had another problem to face, the papers. i'd hidden the file under a full stack of school work, just incase, but paper was noisy to move if you weren't careful. i suppressed a sigh, beginning to slowly pick the paper up and place it on the floor next to me one by one. my file security system wasn't very well suited to checking on the file at six in the morning.

i reached the last piece of paper finally, lifting it up and blinking. it really was the last piece of paper. there was no file looking back at me, simply the wood of the bottom of the draw. fuck. looks like my file security system wasn't very well suited full stop.